If you take a look at the picture I have provided you just below this paragraph then what would you say about this example of contemporary art? Painted by an eight-year-old, bland and boring, basic and amateurish? I would say all of those things, but what would you say if I told you that someone paid £53.8m for it?
It’s no joke; somebody broke the record for the highest price ever paid for a piece of contemporary art at auction.
The piece itself was painted by Mark Rothko and is entitled “Orange, Red, Yellow”. And if you look at some of his other work then you will discover that he has made a fortune on the same idea. This is just different shades of colour on a canvas in quite frankly basic and pathetic shapes.
When I want to see art I want to see skill. And that’s what one of the dictionary definitions of art is: “Skilled.” Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso, Cezanne, Botticelli, all of these were skilled at what they did. This is an insult to art and this is precisely why many people believe that contemporary art is utter trash. I’m one of these people and I just hope that whoever paid for this realises how stupid he is.
And I know that fans of this are going to try and put people off with their elitist rhetoric about how some people are too stupid to see the true meaning in it. But you can find meanings in anything if you like, it doesn’t make the item you are taking a meaning from art, though.
Take a stereotypical yellow, number two test pencil, with eraser, and here is my meaning for it:
“This pencil demonstrates the transitioning of the past to the modern day as this tool has been transformed from the creative purposes it was once instilled with to the rigid structuring of modern day life. The point is the crowning glory of what can symbolise the pointlessness of the modern educational system and the stifling of creative thought. And, yet, at the same time, the fact that it creates these feelings is a demonstration of artistic genius in itself.”
I could go on, but it demonstrates that you can see a meaning in even the most mundane things.
I’ve also noticed something else quite interesting as well. If we look back to the past, and I mean centuries prior to this one, the skilled were praised. The skilled were praised in a society that was rather primitive. And those skilled artists of today are still incredibly difficult to replicate in our modern age, without the aid of computers. But as we have advanced throughout the ages we have actually opted for more primitive forms of art; and this is what we call contemporary art.
The only thing that is skilled here is the fact that Mark Rothko managed to convince someone to pay that much for something that was most likely painted within a day.
This is nothing but a few colours splashed on to the page in a childlike manner. As we advance further, are artists just going to debase themselves further in a sad attempt to seem different?
That’s something that has always bothered me about the art industry. They are so desperate to move away from mainstream society that they are willing to damage their own art because of it.
This further enhances my view that contemporary art is based off of nothing but connections and who has the most cash. Granted, to an extent, it was always like this. But no artist can succeed with things like this without having powerful and influential connections and lots of money to do the talking.
There are many different kinds of “skill”, one being to produce something of immense emotional power. That’s what Rothko’s work means to many people. Is there a lot of bull attached to the art world? I’m sure there is. Is this painting worth the money? Of course not. What is? I’m a Rothko fan and I also love Rembrandt too. It’s possible to love both. Rothko committed suicide a long time ago and he doesn’t control the financial transactions of the art market. I would urge you to see one of his works in a gallery…stand in front of it and let it overwhelm you..look at it, really look at it.
Modern art is always guaranteed to spark a debate. Although i must say I’m with Samuel here – i can’t see any emotional power in a square painted in a couple of different shades
If you place a large slab of all of Rothko’s work on one page, and stand them next to each other, what do you get? The paintings are pretty much the same. They contain a background colour, and two or three other colours placed on to the page in a square/rectangular shape. The worst thing about Rothko is the fact that he doesn’t even have any variation within his work. It’s somewhich which a child could create.
In fact, I recall an art class in primary school where we painted a piece of paper in one colour and then used square sponges to stamp other colours on the page. I’m no artist, but what I was doing was exactly what Rothko was doing; the only difference is that he was doing it on a larger canvas.
And I’m sure if I saw my old work now I could create some meaning from it within my mind and try and feign some emotional response, which wouldn’t be difficult since I’m sure I could evoke a nostalgic feeling within myself.
But the only thing that I will give to Rothko, in terms of skill, is that he managed to make people believe something as childish as that is any good. That could be replicated/created within a day. That’s a far cry from the artists who used to spend days and even months locked in a basement studio.
Completely agree, without a doubt I still believe art is important and majestic – but good art, not bad art. I don’t agree with the rhetoric that photography has eliminated art as a means for reproducing an image, because that was never the only intention in the first place. The magical thing about it is it’s ability to remain completely subjective, and while studying it I was amazed at the almost infinite ways you can depict something (that thought tends to allude most) and the intricacy of how it is depicted. This depicts nothing, shows no inherent skill (anyone can paint a gradient) or profound thought.
The piece on it’s own isn’t amazingly shit, it’s fairly nice to glance at and would fit squarely as a work for a contemporary hospital corridor – but to be sold at 53 million completely defecates on the entire practice. People say they’re overwhelmed by it’s ‘simplicity’ – I’m overwhelmed by their simplicity.
In a hundred yeard, these paintings will be considered crap. A footnote where art historians will write that “the artist supposedly was making a profound statement, but was actually separating millionaires from their excess cash.” It was all about decadence and pretentiousness. Anybody can slap paint down on very large canvases and have “experts” who have to justify their existence, spew about the social merit. It’s just a pathetic buddy system which everyone can see through, and will fade away. A fad. Contemporary art is a pet rock.